Personalized game pieces

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for generating a game piece are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises launching an application on a mobile device that has a camera; selecting a game character using the application; displaying an overlay for the selected game character in an image from a field of view of the camera, the overlay being an augmented reality layer; capturing an image of an individual in the field of view of the camera; sending the captured image to a printer that is coupled to the mobile device; and printing the captured image with a border of unequal size around the image, wherein printing the capture images comprises printing the captured image upside down to cause a border area larger at a top of the image than around other portions of the image for use in handling the image when using the image as part of a game piece.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention relate to the field of gaming; moreparticularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to generatingpersonalized game piece that may be used with a game (e.g., a boardgame).

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Personalization of products is often a customization that is performedin a certain area and such customization may take many forms. Forexample, many types of products are personalized, ranging from digitaland print media, advertising, and sales, so that they meet the desiresand/or needs of targeted individuals. This personalization has beenextended to mobile devices where users opt for many customizations toget the mobile phone to perform a variety of desired functions andoperations.

At the same time, the use of a mobile phone to capture images has grownto the point of nearly replacing the digital cameras that were onceprevalent in the marketplace. In fact, the use of a mobile phone fortaking pictures has been made so simple that even children of very youngages are able to easily take pictures themselves. Even so, the use of amobile device to personalize a game experience isn't known to theinventors.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method and apparatus for generating a game piece are disclosed. In oneembodiment, the method comprises launching an application on a mobiledevice that has a camera; selecting a game character using theapplication; displaying an overlay for the selected game character in animage from a field of view of the camera, the overlay being an augmentedreality layer; capturing an image of an individual in the field of viewof the camera; sending the captured image to a printer that is coupledto the mobile device; and printing the captured image with a border ofunequal size around the image, wherein printing the capture imagescomprises printing the captured image upside down to cause a border arealarger at a top of the image than around other portions of the image foruse in handling the image when using the image as part of a game piece.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will be understood more fully from the detaileddescription given below and from the accompanying drawings of variousembodiments of the invention, which, however, should not be taken tolimit the invention to the specific embodiments, but are for explanationand understanding only.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a game piece without custom content.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a game piece with augmented content.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a system for generating apersonalized game piece for a game.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of a processor for generatinga personalized game piece for a game.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a portable image capturedevice.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, numerous details are set forth to providea more thorough explanation of the present invention. It will beapparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that the present inventionmay be practiced without these specific details. In other instances,well-known structures and devices are shown in block diagram form,rather than in detail, in order to avoid obscuring the presentinvention.

A method and apparatus for creating personalized game pieces for usewith games are disclosed. In one embodiment, the game pieces are usedfor a wide range of board games. In one embodiment, the game pieceincludes a printed image that is held in a game piece structure, such asa game piece stand. In one embodiment, the printed image is an Instaxprint of an individual that is printed by an Instax Share printer and astand holds the print to create a game piece that is used when playing aboard game. For example, if a group of people are playing a game such asCandy Land, rather than each player selecting a small wooden, coloredgame piece, they can choose a colored print holder/stand, take a picturewith an Instax camera, and incorporate the resulting image into a gamepiece, thereby allowing the player to be themselves in the game.

In one embodiment, a mobile application running on a mobile device isable to add custom content to the image captured by the camera andsubsequently printed. In one embodiment, the custom content represents acostume or a persona of a game character. The custom content augmentsthe image of the player. Using a printer, such as, for example, anInstax Share printer, the image of the player is printed and combinedwith the stand to make a more elaborate game piece for use in the game.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a game piece without custom content.FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a game piece with augmented content.Referring to FIG. 2, the game piece includes costume elements 201 of ahat, eye glasses, and a mustache and costume element 202 that are partof an AR layer.

In one embodiment, the image of the personalized game piece is createdusing a computing system. FIG. 3 is a block diagram of one embodiment ofa system for generating an image that is used as part of thepersonalized game piece.

Referring to FIG. 3, the system includes a mobile device 301 and aprinter 303 that are communicably coupled to each other via wired orwireless communication link 302. Mobile device 301 includes a camera, adisplay, one or more processors coupled to the display and the camera,and a memory coupled to the display, the camera and the processor. Thememory stores instructions (e.g., one or more mobile applications suchas the mobile application discussed above, a camera application forcontrolling the camera of the mobile device, software for controlling acommunication interface of the mobile device, etc.) for execution by theone or more processors.

In one embodiment, the processor(s) executes the instructions to:

launch an application stored in the memory by which a user can select agame character and their associated costume for game piece creation,

enable receipt of an input from the display indicating a selection of agame character that is being displayed on the display of mobile device301 using this application,

trigger a launch of the camera application in response to the userselecting a game character,

access an overlay (AR layer) from a memory for the selected gamecharacter, and

display on the display of mobile device 301, using a camera application,the overlay for the selected game character in an image of the camera'sfield of view. In one embodiment, the overlay is an augmented reality(AR) layer. In one embodiment, the overlay includes costume contentassociated a costume worn by the game character in the game.

For example, if the group of people is playing the board game Clue, inone embodiment, they launch a mobile application on their mobile device(e.g., mobile phone, computer, or tablet, etc.), thereby causing theapplication to run on the mobile device. Once running, a user is able toselect the game such as Clue and select a game character they want to bein the game (e.g., Colonel Mustard). The “costume” for that player,which may include a mustache, glasses, etc., is then displayed in thecamera application as an AR layer. The mobile device user aims thecamera at the player and lines them up in the camera's field of view sothe custom content displays correctly on the player. At this point, themobile device user takes the picture to capture the image. The resultingimage is sent to a printer, such as, for example, but not limited to, anInstax Share printer, to be printed and then subsequently used as partof the player's game piece.

In one embodiment, the AR layer of the game character's costume appearsin the image of the camera's field of view. In other words, if thecamera's field of view is displayed on the display of the mobile device,then the AR layer appears as part of the image before the image iscaptured. When the player enters the camera's field of view, the user ofthe camera may have to frame the player into the costume. This may beperformed by moving the camera forward or backward to zoom in and out,respectively, and/or move the camera left or right with respect to theplayer, so that they appear in the costume with the correct size. Thisis because in one embodiment the AR layer is a top layer of staticcontent that is positioned by the camera user over the image of theplayer. In alternative embodiments, the AR layer is dynamically sized tothe player's image size in the camera's field of view. Thus, the ARlayer resizes itself based on the size of the player in the image. Inyet another embodiment, both the player's image and the AR layer areresized to create the personalized game piece image. In still yetanother embodiment, individual elements in the AR layer are resizedbased on the size of the player image. This has the effect of resizingone or more portions of the game character's costume.

The processor causes the camera to capture an image of a player. In oneembodiment, the processor sends an input to the camera application thatcauses the camera to capture the image of the player with the AR layerin the image. The capture may occur in response to the mobile deviceuser selecting a button or other user interface element on the displayof the mobile device.

After using the camera to capture the image of the player with the ARlayer appearing in the image, the processor sends the image for printingby printer 303, which is communicably coupled to mobile device 301. Thecaptured image is sent using a communication interface of mobile device301. In one embodiment, the processor causes the captured image to besent to printer 303 automatically in response to the user of mobiledevice 301 selecting a button or other user interface element on thedisplay of mobile device 301 that causes the camera of mobile device 301to take a picture. In one embodiment, the captured image is sent toprinter 303 in response to the user of mobile device 301 selecting aprint button or other user interface element on the display.

In one embodiment, the printed image is an image of the playerrepresented as a game character that appears as the player is dressed upas the character. In one embodiment, in response to receiving thecaptured image, printer 303 prints the captured image with a border ofunequal size around the image and upside down to cause a border arealarger at a top of the image than around other portions of the image foruse in handling the image when using the image as part of a game piece.In another embodiment, at least one of the border areas around theprinted image, or portion thereof, is a non-image portion (e.g., one ofthe sides, top, bottom, corner etc.) of the print that the user can grabwhen using the game piece. In one embodiment, the printed image is aninstant print image. In one embodiment, the printer comprises an InstaxShare printer and the printed image is an Instax print.

In one embodiment, the application used to select the AR layer for agame piece also is used to create multiple game pieces for the samegame. In such a case, the application may prompt the user to determinethe number of game pieces they wish to create or prompts the user aftereach is created to determine if the user wants one or more additionalgame pieces created for a game. In one embodiment, when multiple gamepieces are created for the same game, the application performsoperations to ensure that all the game pieces are uniform by having thesame quality, size, resolution, and/or other formatting. In oneembodiment, such a case, each image is formatted to be uniform with theother game pieces being created.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of one embodiment of the process for generatinga personalized game piece. The process is performed by processing logicthat may comprise hardware (circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software(such as is run on a general purpose computer system or a dedicatedmachine), firmware, or a combination of the three. In one embodiment,the process is performed by the system described in FIG. 3.

Referring to FIG. 4, the process begins by processing logic launching anapplication on a mobile device that has a camera (processing block 401).In one embodiment, the application is a game piece image generationapplication that allows a user to select a game and one or morecharacters in the game for game piece personalization. In oneembodiment, launching the application is performed by selecting an iconthat is displayed on a display of the mobile device. The icon may beselected from a number of icons being displayed on the display. In oneembodiment, the display is a touch screen display and the selection ofthe icon is performed by touching the touch screen display. In responsethere to, the display controller of the touch screen determines thelocation the user touched, determines which icon was being displayed atthat location, and then launches the application. In an alternativeembodiment, the user selects the application from a list of applicationsavailable on the mobile device.

After launching the application, processing logic selecting a game and agame character using the application (processing block 402). In oneembodiment, the selection is made in the same way as the selection ismade to launch the application. For example, the user may select thegame and/or game character using a touch screen display of the mobiledevice. The selections may be made via selection of one or more icons orvia the selection of the game and/or character from one or more lists.

After selecting a specific game character, processing logic displays anoverlay for the selected game character in an image from a field of viewof the camera, where the overlay is an augmented reality (AR) layer of acostume of the character in the game (processing block 403). The ARlayer may be stored in a memory on the mobile device and is accessedfrom that memory in response to selection of the character by the userof the mobile device. Alternatively, the AR layer is stored remotely ina device (e.g., a server, database, etc.) and is downloaded to themobile device in response to selection of a game character by the user.Note that although the process is described in terms of one AR layer,the process can be used with multiple AR layers at one time. In oneembodiment, the display of the camera's field of view with the AR layerof the costume of the character in the game is displayed on a display ofthe mobile device using a camera application. That is, the cameraapplication that controls image capture by the camera of the mobiledevice displays the field of view of the camera on the display of themobile device along with the AR layer. In one embodiment, the cameraapplication is launched in response to the launching of the applicationto generate the personalized game piece. In another embodiment, thecamera application is launched in response to the selection of a gamepiece character by the user when interacting with the application togenerate the personalized game piece.

Using the camera of the mobile device under control of the cameraapplication, processing logic captures an image of an individual in thefield of view of the camera with the AR layer overlaid thereon(processing block 404). In one embodiment, the capture is made inresponse to the user touching a camera button on the touch screendisplay of the mobile device.

Note that in one embodiment, the AR layer is static in that it sizedoesn't change. In such a case, the user taking a picture of anindividual to create the personalized game piece may have to adjust thecamera's location side-to-side and/or zooming in or out in order tolocate the user's image in the field of view so that the user isproperly positioned and sized to the costume elements (e.g., a hat ormustache such as in FIG. 2) in the AR layer so that their sizes lookappropriate for the personalized game piece when printed. In anotherembodiment, the AR layer can be dynamically sized using controls on thetouch screen display to allow the size of the costume elements to bemodified to match the size of the individual's image in the field ofview so that their sizes look appropriate for the personalized gamepiece when printed. Thus, in such a case, the AR layer is resized basedon a size of an individual in the field of view of the camera.

Once the image has been captured, processing logic sends the capturedimage to a printer communicably coupled to the mobile device (processingblock 405). The captured image may be sent via wired or wirelesscommunication using a communication interface on the mobile device. Inone embodiment, processing logic sends the captured image to the printerusing wireless communication (e.g., WiFi, infrared, Bluetooth, etc.) viaa wireless communication interface on the mobile device.

Using the printer, processing logic prints the captured image with aborder of unequal size around the image (processing block 406). In oneembodiment, the printed image is an instant print, such as, for example,an Instax print. In one embodiment, the printer is an Instax Shareprinter that prints Instax prints. In one embodiment, the printer printsthe captured image with a border area around the image.

In one embodiment, the border area around the image has a differentthickness on different sizes of the image and the image is printed witha larger border area at the top of the image in order to provide alarger area for a user to handle the game piece during game usagewithout having to touch the image of the game piece. In order to ensurethat the larger border area is at the top of the printed image, in oneembodiment, the printer prints the image upside down, which causes thelarger border area to be at a top of the image. In another embodiment,at least one of the border areas around the printed image, or portionthereof, is a non-image portion (e.g., one of the sides, top, bottom,corner etc.) of the print that the user can grab when using the gamepiece.

In one embodiment, after printing the image, the image is incorporatedinto a game piece holder (processing block 407). In one embodiment,incorporating the image printed with the border into the game pieceholder comprises inserting the image into a slit in the game pieceholder. For example, the game piece holder may encompass a stand with aslit across the top into which the printed image may be placed or slid.In another embodiment, the game piece holder may include a frame-likestructure into which the image may be inserted. For example, such aframe-like structure may have a slit in back and the printed image isinserted into the slit.

FIG. 5 illustrates a portable image capture device 100 in accordancewith one implementation of the mobile device described above. Theimaging device 100 houses a system board 2. The board 2 may include anumber of components, including but not limited to a camera array 32 asdescribed above, a processor 4, and at least one communication package6. The communication package may be coupled to one or more antennas 16.The processor 4 is physically and electrically coupled to the board 2.In one embodiment, device 100 includes one or more processors.

Depending on its applications, image capture device 100 may includeother components that may or may not be physically and electricallycoupled to the board 2. These other components include, but are notlimited to, volatile memory (e.g., DRAM) 8, non-volatile memory (e.g.,ROM) 9, flash memory (not shown), a graphics processor 12, a digitalsignal processor (not shown), a crypto processor (not shown), a chipset14, an antenna 16, a display 18 such as a touchscreen display, atouchscreen controller 20, a battery 22, an audio codec (not shown), avideo codec (not shown), a power amplifier 24, a global positioningsystem (GPS) device 26, a compass 28, an accelerometer (not shown), agyroscope (not shown), a speaker 30, a camera array 32, a microphone (orother sensor) array 34, and a mass storage device (such as hard diskdrive) 10, compact disk (CD) (not shown), digital versatile disk (DVD)(not shown), and so forth). These components may be connected to thesystem board 2, mounted to the system board, or combined with any of theother components.

In one embodiment, camera array 32 and microphone/sensor array 34 arecoupled to image processing chip 36 (e.g., an imaging signal processor)and/or to the processor 4, either directly or through the image chip,via FGPA/IC 31, which is described above. The image chip may take avariety of different forms, such as a graphics co-processor, or aseparate dedicated imaging management module. Such a module or devicemay comprise logic, algorithms, and/or instructions operative tocapture, process, edit, compress, store, print, and/or display one ormore images. These processes may include using the AR layer with acamera to create a game piece image with an overlay (e.g., costume) inthe captured image as described herein. In some embodiments, the imagingmanagement module may comprise programming routines, functions, and/orprocesses implemented as software within an imaging application oroperating system. In various other embodiments, the imaging managementmodule may be implemented as a standalone chip or integrated circuit, oras circuitry comprised within the processor, within a CPU, within agraphics chip or other integrated circuit or chip, or within a cameramodule.

The communication package 6 enables wireless and/or wired communicationsfor the transfer of data to and from the imaging device 100. Suchcommunication could be with a printer (e.g., Instax Share printer) suchas is described above. The term “wireless” and its derivatives may beused to describe circuits, devices, systems, methods, techniques,communications channels, etc., that may communicate data through the useof modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Theterm does not imply that the associated devices do not contain anywires, although in some embodiments they might not. The communicationpackage 6 may implement any of a number of wireless or wired standardsor protocols, including but not limited to Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 family),WiMAX (IEEE 802.16 family), IEEE 802.20, long term evolution (LTE),Ev-DO, HSPA+, HSDPA+, HSUPA+, EDGE, GSM, GPRS, CDMA, TDMA, DECT,Bluetooth, Ethernet derivatives thereof, as well as any other wirelessand wired protocols that are designated as 3G, 4G, 5G, and beyond. Thevideo device 100 may include a plurality of communication packages 6.For instance, a first communication package 6 may be dedicated toshorter range wireless communications such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and asecond communication package 6 may be dedicated to longer range wirelesscommunications such as GPS, EDGE, GPRS, CDMA, WiMAX, LTE, Ev-DO, andothers.

Cameras of camera array 32 may include all of the components of thecamera or share resources, such as memory 8, 9, 10, processing 4 anduser interface 12, 20, with other video device components and functions.The processor 4 is coupled to camera array 32 and to memory to receiveframes and produce enhanced images, including images using the AR layerdescribed above. In one embodiment, cameras of camera array 32 includean image capture sensor(s) and color filter array described above. Inone embodiment, cameras of camera array 32 also include an imageprocessing system, as described above.

In various implementations, the image capture device 100 may be a videocamera, a digital single lens reflex or mirror-less camera, a cellulartelephone, a media player, laptop, a netbook, a notebook, an ultrabook,a smartphone, a wearable device, a tablet, a personal digital assistant(PDA), an ultra mobile PC, or a digital video recorder. The imagecapture device may be fixed, portable, or wearable. In furtherimplementations, the image capture device 100 may be any otherelectronic device that records a sequence of image frames and processesdata.

Some portions of the detailed descriptions above are presented in termsof algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussion,it is appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “processing” or “computing” or “calculating” or“determining” or “displaying” or the like, refer to the action andprocesses of a computer system, or similar electronic computing device,that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical(electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers andmemories into other data similarly represented as physical quantitieswithin the computer system memories or registers or other suchinformation storage, transmission or display devices.

The present invention also relates to apparatus for performing theoperations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, any type ofdisk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs, andmagnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs), EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any typeof media suitable for storing electronic instructions, and each coupledto a computer system bus.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct more specializedapparatus to perform the required method steps. The required structurefor a variety of these systems will appear from the description below.In addition, the present invention is not described with reference toany particular programming language. It will be appreciated that avariety of programming languages may be used to implement the teachingsof the invention as described herein.

A machine-readable medium includes any mechanism for storing ortransmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., acomputer). For example, a machine-readable medium includes read onlymemory (“ROM”); random access memory (“RAM”); magnetic disk storagemedia; optical storage media; flash memory devices; electrical, optical,acoustical or other form of propagated signals (e.g., carrier waves,infrared signals, digital signals, etc.); etc.

Whereas many alterations and modifications of the present invention willno doubt become apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art afterhaving read the foregoing description, it is to be understood that anyparticular embodiment shown and described by way of illustration is inno way intended to be considered limiting. Therefore, references todetails of various embodiments are not intended to limit the scope ofthe claims which in themselves recite only those features regarded asessential to the invention.

We claim:
 1. A method comprising: launching an application on a mobiledevice that has a camera; selecting a game character using theapplication; displaying, on a display of the mobile device using acamera application, an overlay for the selected game character in animage from a field of view of the camera, the overlay being an augmentedreality layer; capturing, using the camera, an image of an individual inthe field of view of the camera; sending the captured image to a printercommunicably coupled to the mobile device; and printing, using theprinter, the captured image with a border of unequal size around theimage, wherein printing the capture images comprises printing thecaptured image upside down to cause a border area larger at a top of theimage than around other portions of the image for use in handling theimage when using the image as part of a game piece.
 2. The methoddefined in claim 1 further comprising: triggering a launch of the cameraapplication in response to selecting the game character; and accessingthe overlay from a memory based on the selected game character.
 3. Themethod defined in claim 1 wherein the overlay is a costume associatedwith the game character.
 4. The method defined in claim 1 wherein theprinter comprises an Instax Share printer.
 5. The method defined inclaim 1 wherein the image printed is an Instax print.
 6. The methoddefined in claim 1 further comprising resizing the AR layer based on asize of a human in the field of view of the camera.
 7. The methoddefined in claim 1 wherein sending the captured image to the printer isperformed wirelessly.
 8. The method defined in claim 1 furthercomprising incorporating the image printed with the border into a gamepiece holder.
 9. The method defined in claim 8 wherein incorporating theimage printed with the border into the game piece holder comprisesinserting the image into a slit in the game piece holder.
 10. An articleof manufacture having one or more non-transitory computer readablestorage media storing instructions which when executed by a systemcauses the system to perform a method comprising: launching anapplication on a mobile device that has a camera; selecting a gamecharacter using the application; displaying, on a display of the mobiledevice using a camera application, an overlay for the selected gamecharacter in an image from a field of view of the camera, the overlaybeing an augmented reality layer; capturing, using the camera, an imageof an individual in the field of view of the camera; sending thecaptured image to a printer communicably coupled to the mobile device;and printing, using the printer, the captured image with a border ofunequal size around the image, wherein printing the capture imagescomprises printing the captured image upside down to cause a border arealarger at a top of the image than around other portions of the image foruse in handling the image when using the image as part of a game piece.11. The article of manufacture defined in claim 10 wherein the methodfurther comprises: triggering a launch of the camera application inresponse to selecting the game character; and accessing the overlay froma memory based on the selected game character.
 12. The article ofmanufacture defined in claim 10 wherein the overlay is a costumeassociated with the game character.
 13. The article of manufacturedefined in claim 10 wherein the printer comprises an Instax Shareprinter and the image printed is an Instax print.
 14. The article ofmanufacture defined in claim 10 wherein the image printed is an instantprint.
 15. The article of manufacture defined in claim 10 wherein themethod further comprises resizing the AR layer based on a size of ahuman in the field of view of the camera.
 16. The article of manufacturedefined in claim 10 wherein sending the captured image to the printer isperformed wirelessly.
 17. A system for generating a game piece for usein game, the system comprising: a printer; and a mobile devicecommunicably couplable to the printer and having a display, a cameracoupled to the display, one or more processors coupled to the displayand the camera, a memory coupled to the display, the camera and theprocessor, the memory to store instructions for execution by the one ormore processors, wherein the one or more processors are operable toexecute the instructions to launch an application stored in the memory,enable receipt of an input from the display indicating selection of agame character being displayed on the display using the application,display, on the display using a camera application, an overlay for theselected game character in an image from a field of view of the camera,where the overlay is an augmented reality layer, cause the camera tocapture an image of a player with a camera, send the captured image to aprinter communicably coupled to the mobile device, wherein the printer,in response to receiving the captured image, is operable to print thecaptured image with a border of unequal size around the image and upsidedown to cause a border area larger at a top of the image than aroundother portions of the image for use in handling the image when using theimage as part of a game piece.
 18. The system defined in claim 17wherein the processor is operable to: trigger a launch of the cameraapplication in response to selecting the game character; and access theoverlay from a memory based on the selected game character.
 19. Thesystem defined in claim 17 wherein the overlay is a costume associatedwith the game character.
 20. The system defined in claim 17 wherein theprinter comprises an Instax Share printer.
 21. The system defined inclaim 17 wherein the image printed is an instant print.
 22. The systemdefined in claim 17 wherein the image printed is an Instax print.